"I wish to make three points and in conclusion a fourth.

I'm pretty sure that most people here tonight would like to have a say on the topic of local government, there are also thousands more out there (as shown by excellent letters to the editor) who feel similarly.

One of the best things to come out of the fascist regime of the recent past is the Geelong Community Forum; a place where voices can be heard.

There is a lot of saying and listening in governance - as there is in life - better ways of doing things arise that way.

When the first people as we know them, tuck their heads above the grasslands in Africa and saw the lions and tigers, they realised (as their survival is testimony), that collaboration with one another is a matter of life over death.

That act of collaboration is simple but we often deny its complexities. Who is to say that the main ingredient in the way we do something is the first idea, or the next that allows us to compare it, or the next that puts just that bit of spin on it? Clearly they all stand together to make it work.

That's not all of it either. We must realise that it's chiefly through acknowledgment from others when we are heard that we actually exist. Someone says "Hello Rod" and responds to what I say - I take pride, feel good, say more, do more, find more energy and sing in the sunshine (assume it's the other way around too).

My second point concerns rights and responsibilities.

We hear lots about the first - that we have rights but we hear little about the second - responsibilities. One implies the other - and it's not enough to merely vote to create implied consent to decision-makers - those days are well over.

If we live in collaborative structures - such as Western society, then it behoves us all to play active roles of responsibility together.

We all earn a living somehow, often not very satisfactorily.

But alongside of that is another world of links and interactions that bear not monetary gain (about other exchange values).

Both these worlds exist together - the first because the second is there, the second because the first is there.

That second or other world is where most of us mainly live lives that are meaningful.

The future will see us working shorter monetary gain lives and longer life enlargement lives.

We should all understand that we all have responsibilities to play parts in both worlds - but especially in the second world.

How well are we doing with responsibilities?

A rich living society does not have a few spokespeople or a few respected authorities - it has many accepted voices.

When we hear only a few voices we are living in an unhealthy community.

When we hear a rich diversity of voices we are living in a healthy place where all our lives are constantly reshaping.

A model for me of a rich community is the Western District Historic Car Club.

Each of us has roles we can play in exercising responsibilities. A coach of a hockey team, an APEX member, a church warden, a marshall at an event, a supper provider, an MP, a friend of a park. These roles are not paid and are all short term.

When we take these roles we come to respect others in decision-making positions at any time, because we have been there. It is only after experience gained ourselves that the system truly functions.

My third point has to do with what we really want from local governance.

To say that we want to balance the budget, to cut costs is to miss the point. Certainly we must balance the books and we must realise there is always a cost to everything - (as well as a reaction in the other world) - cut the cost - cut the service. We surely must be taken for suckers if this is the only goal we are told we seek.

Beware the peddlers of fear - they dominate our lives and are life deniers.

How do I measure the quality of local governance?

I measure it in the volume and quality and management of energies of individual citizens, that is the way in which we capture the energies of those interactions and collaborations previously mentioned. Here are some examples.

How has the city capture the energies of those associated with the fight to Save Point Lillias? They won against enormous odds.

How has the city embraced the voices and energies of those associated with the rehabilitation of Buckley's Falls and similar places - where gardens are created out of human destruction?

How has the city, how does the city, chase and run down those energies involved in sustainable ways of living like greater bicycle use and public transport use, and productivity through community gardens and greening and collections, and decorations and care for places and protection of embodied energy, all proving that long term costs can be reduced and lives enhanced?

How has the city used and acknowledged the Geelong Community Forum? (queried, berated, laughed at - but still surviving by the use of super organisational skills.)

How has the city included and cajoled children in the process of collaboration and responsibility?

Before I finish with this point, let me sound a word or warning.

In this process of measurement the citizens must do the measuring., not some fly by night bureaucrat or consultant who has his or her own agenda and work in the first world. A classic example of this is the way in which the Save Albert Park Citizens tell a totally different picture to that told by the race organisers.

The world of life enhancement, of local governance is not the world of individual (greed) or short terms or window dressing or the quick fix. The world of local governance is what it says - local -for the here and now, but more for the long term.

In conclusion

I don't think that too many people understand how sophisticated modern urban conglomerates work. Constantly we have things done to us which are grossly life destroying - physical things. Such subjects are not part of school curriculums and we need to foster these knowledges.

Secondly, we need to establish the preconditions for local governance through pressing the story about responsibilities and collaboration potentials.

Thirdly, any attempt to fiddle with details of a faulty machine (which was so obscenely restructured recently, and in which so much of what we now want brought back, destroyed in a scorched earth policy) is like whistling in the wind. Unless the fundamentals of interaction are addressed we will continue to while to little avail.

I conclude with seven lines from Lao Tzu:

There are leaders the people fear
There are leaders the people hate
There are leaders the people love
But when the best leaders of all
Have finished their work
The people say
We did it ourselves."